covering the digital media world for the 10+3 nations… China, Japan, Korea and ASEAN

Is Social Media Helping To Socialize China?

When you think about social media in the USA, you are most likely to associate it with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and the countless number of blogs out there. So if asked about social media in China, many people will invariably seek out the China-equivalents of similar social networking services (SNS) like Kaixin Web and Renren, and similar micro-blogging sites such as Digu, Fanfou, and Taotao.

The trouble with this logic is that technology adoption rarely adheres to a uniform trend worldwide. Long before the existence of the iPhone and the prevalence of the mobile internet that we have in USA today, Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, Inc. ((ADR) NYSE: DCM) was giving the world a first peek into the mobile future with its innovative i-mode service. For all its hype in the early 2000s however, i-mode never achieved any credible success outside of Japan.

As marketers in the Western world are re-thinking their strategies with the current rage in social media, businesses in China are likewise shifting their approaches in innovative ways. The Chinese people are already voracious consumers and contributors of social media, with an estimated 92% of its netizens actively engaged in it. But to focus on the same Western-styled social media channels will likely result in ineffective campaigns. The Chinese users take to streams of conversations on BBSes more readily than those on social networking sites and blogs, which has been much of the focus of campaigns here in USA.

This is just the beginning where Chinese marketers become more sophisticated about using China-styled social media in delivering their marketing campaigns. Just check out these examples from Lufthansa Airlinesand BioTherm.